As the title of Sloclap’s upcoming game Sifu essentially translates to “master,” the studio’s newest release asks proficiency of its players. Retaining an arcade-like accessibility, Sifu is shaping up to be a third-person action-adventure game which is easy to pick up and hard to master. The challenge lies in learned timing, placement, and crowd control, and our first hands-on look reveals what looks to be a slick and streamlined experience that's great fun from the first minute of play.
Sifu is Sloclap’s follow-up to 2017’s Absolver, a highly customizable brawler with deep PVP gameplay and some SoulsBourne leanings. Our preview time spent with Sifu separates the game even further from its predecessor for the accessible third-person brawler it is. We’ve learned that timing and positioning is paramount, much more so than memorizing complicated combos or scrolling through long menus of stats.
After a lengthy pre-release buildup spanning trailers for Sifu and guided presentations, Screen Rant was finally able to spent some quality time breaking faces on a quest for vengeance. It’s worth noting that SloClap’s present preview build is arguably minimal, amounting to 15 minutes’ worth of gameplay plucked from the game’s second level. A 15-minute preview of most any other title might hardly be worth writing about, but we’ve beaten this section roughly 30 times by now, and it serves as a strong sell for the game’s concept at scale.
The playable preview takes place in “The Club,” and sees the main character breaching a seedy nightclub at dusk. A lone bodyguard protects the door, which leads to a dive bar, a discotheque, an underground fighting arena, and a gym. Each partitioned section features an array of different fighters in various outfits, with most drawing from different combat tendencies and behaviors.
Sifu takes numerous visual cues from martial arts film, which is evident in the slightly grainy filter laid over the view, conjuring the highly stylized presentation of a gritty animated feature. Combat mostly amounts to a quick and heavy attack, a button to snatch highlighted objects from the environment to use as weapons, and an all-important parry/block which defaults to the L1 bumper. Soften up an enemy’s structure/poise and a prompt appears for a quick, brutal-looking finisher, which also adapts to the environment; for instance, finishing a combatant near a wall or bar top may lead to a face-crunching slam into the surface or a tumble over the edge.
The parry is key to Sifu’s combat, which often feels somewhat reminiscent of the parry/counter mechanics in the Arkham games. The timing here is quite different, though; there’s no obvious button prompt for when to parry or dodge, and players will learn to press it exactly when a hit is about to land. The lesser fighters encountered tend to attack quickly and are therefore generally easy to deflect, while tougher enemies extend their attack windows and seem to mix up their move-set.
A few adaptive elements add further evidence to Sifu's potential replayability. For one, certain enemies always run the risk of “upgrading” into a mini-boss, which can occur mid-finisher and seems to happen more frequently if the player is performing well; perhaps this adaptive challenge is one reason why Sifu will not have difficulty options at launch? One-on-one, these encounters are tough enough, but nothing prevents them from emerging in the middle of a larger brawl. They wield stronger and more unpredictable fighting styles as well as a massive health bar, and essentially increase the tension in a room whenever they appear.
That being said, it’s harder to gauge whether other aspects of the game have considerable legs at this stage. There are various moves and upgrades which can be unlocked with accrued points at dragon statues or after the player dies - we've previously explored Sifu’s signature aging/death mechanic in greater depth - and the move list may appear gated for this preview, but hardly exciting on its own. Quite a few seem directly tied to weapons as well, and some simple pickups like a baseball bat appear in “The Club,” with a machete and bo staff open for use in the hub's training mode. Will players reserve their precious XP for the possibility of encountering a particular weapon during play?
Aside from that, and unsurprisingly, Sifu's camera can be touchy. It usually does its best to showcase the best viewpoint, but fighting a room of eight enemies makes it nigh-impossible to keep everyone on the screen at once. Being backed up into a corner already renders the player more vulnerable, but the controllable camera opens up the run-ending opportunity of a stray unseen flying kick.
So what prompted hours of rapt attention for such a short demo? Above all, Sifu features an engrossing gameplay flow, focused on fluid movement and snappy combat. Learning the basics of timing and chewing through a once-difficult room with ease is immediately satisfying, and the potential for proficiency seems exciting at this stage – it also helps that the visual design makes these fights a pleasure to watch. It may be tricky to yet determine the full depth available in the finished game but, if its shallowest portion is as entertaining as this, Sifu’s going to be a must-buy for beat ‘em up fans in February.
Sifu will release on February 8 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a digital code to play through a preview version of Sifu for the purposes of this article.